SOURCE: “Variations on Vietnam: Women's Innovative Interpretations of the Vietnam War Experience,” in Extrapolation, Vol. 32, No. 2, Summer, 1991, pp. 170–83.

In the following excerpt, Carter discusses Phillips's break from realistic fiction in her presentation of the Vietnam War in Machine Dreams.

As the Vietnam War literary genre continued to evolve, writers of both genders have experimented with literary expression in search of the most representative interpretation possible for a war that still begs for definition, where absolutes appear to be missing and reality remains obscure. Of all literary expression, innovation offers the greatest freedom to explore such an elusive war in every conceivable direction. Although they are a minority, several women writers of the Vietnam War experience have broken with the tradition of realism predominant in women's war writings to express their impressions of the Vietnam War experience with more innovative variations in both form and content.

… Foremost among these...